ment of womanhood. You need us more than we need suffrage.
In our large cities the vicious element rules. The reserve force
is in the womanhood of the nation. Woman suffrage is necessary
for the preservation of the life of the republic. To give women
the ballot is to increase the intelligent and law-abiding vote.
The tramp vote is entirely masculine. By enfranchising the women
of this country, you enfranchise humanity.

Mrs. Colby thus described to the committee the recent vote in Nebraska
on a woman suffrage amendment:

The subject was well discussed; the leading men and the majority
of the press and pulpit favored it. Everything indicated that
here at last the measure might be safely submitted to popular
vote. On election day the women went to the polling places in
nearly every precinct in the State, with their flowers, their
banners, their refreshments and their earnest pleadings. But
every saloon keeper worked against the amendment, backed by the
money and the power of the liquor league. The large foreign vote
went almost solidly against woman suffrage. Nebraska defies the
laws of the United States by allowing foreigners to vote when
they have been only six months on the soil of America. Many of
these, as yet wholly unfamiliar with the institutions of our
country, voted the ballot which was placed in their hands. The
woman suffrage amendment received but a little over one-third of
the votes cast.

Men were still so afraid women did not want to vote that only one
thing remained to convince them we were in earnest, and that was
for us to vote that way. So the next session we had another
amendment introduced, to be voted on by the men as before, but
not to take effect until ratified by a majority of the women. We
were willing to be counted if the Legislature would make it legal
to count us. It refused because the question, it said, had
already been settled by the people. Although we had worked and
pleaded and done all that women could do to obtain our rights of
citizenship, yet the Legislature looking at "the people" did not
see us, and refused to submit the question again. Having failed
to obtain our rights by popular vote, we now appeal to you.

Miss Anthony related the unsuccessful efforts of Mrs. Caroline E.
Merrick and other ladies of Louisiana to